


Firsts

by divineglass



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Firsts, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 10:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divineglass/pseuds/divineglass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he kisses her takes them both by surprise.  The first time she kisses him isn’t a surprise. It’s a gesture of comfort. The Doctor and Clara take a trip to Planet of the Coffee Shops.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Firsts

**Author's Note:**

> Popped into my head this week after the Rings of Akhaten, and takes place after the Rings of Akhaten!

The first time he kisses her takes them both by surprise.

It’s the most ordinary occasion, really. They visit the Planet of the Coffee Shops. Since the quarantine on Apalapucia was lifted, and the Two Streams Facility shut down, it had taken the coffee shop planet’s place as the #1 destination in the universe. He picks a day where tourism is particularly low on the planet and they visit, welcomed by torrential rains.

“So _this_ is why tourism is low for today,” says Clara, a bit sourly, as she pulls her head back inside the TARDIS, her hair drenched in the two seconds it spent outside of the blue box. Her mascara runs down her cheeks, and she reaches up with both hands to wipe the rain from her face.

The Doctor doesn’t look away from the scanner until he feels water soaking through the sleeve of his shirt. “Oy!” he says, and looks around at Clara, who had been resting her wet hair against his sleeve as she looked over his shoulder at the scanner. “Ah, must’ve miscalculated the days. _Tomorrow_ is when the rains stop.”

“Now you tell me,” she says, her arms crossed over her chest. “ _I’m_ going to go find a towel to take care of this. Haven’t got a hair dryer anywhere in this box, do ya?”

He opens his mouth to speak and comes up with no answer, so he places his hand on top of Clara’s head and swivels her around. “Off you pop, I’ll work on the days.”

She makes a small noise of complaint at being swiveled around, but stumbles off a bit towards the room she has taken to inhabiting in the TARDIS.

He watches as Clara walks away; he’s noticed she has a purpose about her when she walks, a bounce in her step, even--it’s endearing, and he finds himself admiring her more frequently when she isn’t looking, after watching her give up the most important memento of her mother. There’s something unique about her, and he has been aware of it ever since he met her properly, as Clara _Oswin_ Oswald; it isn’t just that she is _the woman twice dead_ , no. It’s more than that, and it drives him mad that he has yet to put a finger on it properly. He would think it was her ability to keep up with him, word for word, or her selflessness with children--

“I thought you were going to work on the days?” her voice cuts into his reverie, and he blinks a few times, his eyes focusing on Clara as she walks up the stairs to the main platform, running a towel over her hair. “No hair dryer, but the TARDIS didn’t move my room this time. Maybe it’s warming up to me!

“She,” he corrects automatically.

“The TARDIS is a _she_?” Clara asks, her eyebrows rising. “You _would_ have a girl spaceship. I suppose you asked for it like that specifically?” There’s a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“Hey--no! I stole it, I didn’t know she was a she when I sto--oh, _shut up_ ,” he says, as he notices her shoulders shaking and the hand that covers her mouth to hide her laughter. He snorts at her petulantly and spins around, flicking switches on the console and looking up at the rotors as they begin to spin. “Days, fixing, now!”

She folds her towel and hangs it over one of the bars, her hair tousled but less drippy than before, and walks over to stand next to him. He looks over as she does this, and notices just how _natural_ she looks. It is a good look for her, he decides, and opens his mouth to tell her so, but the TARDIS chooses that moment to jolt alarmingly, sending the two of them sprawling onto the floor, sounds of pain coming from both of them in different octaves.

“For someone so skinny, you’re certainly _not light_ ,” says Clara in a muffled voice.

He pushes himself upward, looking down at Clara with wide eyes. He stays there for a moment, just looking at her, and a ball of something forms in his stomach. Her expression changes to that of a quizzical one, and he can tell she is confused, so he looks away and pushes himself in a standing position. He offers her a hand--she takes it--and suddenly she’s too close, and he can smell the jasmine of her shampoo, and she’s looking at him, and he closes the gap between them. His lips fit gently against hers, and he can feel the way her lips part in surprise before she gives herself over to returning the kiss.

And it is over almost as abruptly as it started. He pulls away as though he had been drenched in a bucket of cold water, flushes pink, and looks away. “Sorry,” he mumbles, not looking at her.

There is nothing but silence from Clara for an agonizing moment, and he goes to look at her a few times before changing his mind--resulting in a mad twitch that she snorts at.

“And I thought _you_ said it wasn’t a snogbox,” is all she says, and skips over to the door.

\---

The first time she kisses him isn’t a surprise. It’s a gesture of comfort.

Clara and the Doctor spend too long hopping from cafe to bistro, caffeine filling their veins. The Doctor is particularly excitable, the jittering causing him to twitch at every noise and every _thing_ that moves in the corner of his eye. Clara is clutching a mug in her hand--much like the first time he met this version of her--and they are taking a break on a bench outside the biggest coffee shop on the planet. It’s lauded to be the size of a medium-sized island--probably around the size of Ireland, he tells her for scale--but special portals in the shop allow patrons to pop from one part to another.

She cradles the mug in front of her lips in both hands, looking over it at the Doctor as he looks at the storefront of another shop that specializes in frozen coffees and teas, and he talks about the origin of frozen coffees, and how Starbucks _thought_ they created the craze of the Frappuccino, but it was really created by a Lucidean about twenty years before Starbucks came up with the idea. He is beginning to describe the Lucidean race and their golden skin when she interrupts him.

“All those things you said to the parasite god, at the Pyramid of Akhaten,” she said, her eyes serious over the rim of her mug. “You’ve... you’ve lost so much. Are you the last Time Lord?”

He falters and lifts his forgotten tea to his lips, using the act of drinking as a way to stall the conversation he had been putting off. The cold liquid makes him grimace, but he drinks it anyway.

“You’re stalling,” she calls him out correctly. “But that’s alright. Take your t--”

“Time? It’s one thing I’ve got too much of and not enough,” he says, laughing, though it does not sound like a happy laugh. “Yes.” He answers her question simply, and looks over to her.

She rests her mug on the bench next to her and takes one of his hands in both of hers. “I can’t begin to relate, but--I’m sorry,” she says, and he can tell that she really, _truly_ means it. “I really am.”

Before he knows it, before he can say anything to respond, she has dropped his hand and one of hers rests on his chest, between his hearts, and she is pressing her lips lightly against his. It lasts for merely a moment--not even long enough for him to kiss her back, or realize that he even wants to kiss her back--and she has taken his hand in hers again.

The look on his face reads shock, mixed with something close to longing, and he almost smiles. “Thank you,” he replies, and covers her hands with the hand she isn’t holding.

“What, for kissin’ you?” she teases, and smiles up at him.

“Sure. We’ll go with that.” He returns the smile. A beat, and then he stands, pulling her off the bench with him. “Now, let’s go. I think there’s a coffee shop that has scones just like the ones in the Lake District in 1927!”

 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you guys enjoyed this! i might continue with ~~another kind of first~~ sometime!


End file.
